Born again in baptism

Christ taught us that to enter heaven, we must be “born again of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5) – a statement that from the earliest days of the Church have been understood to refer to baptism. St. Peter taught that “baptism…now saves you” (1 Peter 3:21), and St. Paul wrote that God “saved us…by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). So, when I was baptized 41 years ago, I was “born again” the Bible way!

I was four months old when I was baptized. The Methodist congregation our family attended shared the same belief in infant baptism that is practiced in the Catholic Church. In fact, most non-Catholic groups also practice infant baptism – Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed/Presbyterian, Anglican/Episcopal, Methodist and more. Infant baptism is not followed by some Protestant groups, in particular those that stem from the Anabaptist movement that came later in Reformation history.